Last month Robert Morrison University, a private university in Chicago, became the first to accept video gaming as a varsity sport.

The university even gave a student $15,000 in scholarship money for playing a popular online game, League of Legends.

The game was once the reason the student almost did not achieve his high school diploma, but is now the reason for him receiving a scholarship and attending university.

The university has even set up a classroom for practice, with an expansive screen, computers and gaming gear.

The university was the first to add League of Legends to their athletic program.

Athletic director Kurt Melcher said in a press release, “League of Legends is a competitive, challenging game that requires significant amount of teamwork to be successful.”

This just goes to show that eSports are becoming recognized not only by young people but by authoritative figures in universities as well.

Qualified gamers at RMU can earn up to 50 per cent tuition scholarships, which is as much as any other sport at the university.

According to RMU, spending money on these students will enrich campus life and add to its ranks of high-achieving graduates.

Before this, video games were often considered for slackers and nerds.

People did not take gamers seriously and put them down because they did not believe playing a game was a good use of time and could even lead to worse grades in the long run.

However, now that games have drastically evolved, requiring extreme skill and strategy to perform, eSports have become popular in the gaming community and beyond.

Gamers spend a lot of time and energy becoming the best that they can be, so why shouldn’t they get rewarded for their efforts?

Many professional gamers earn salaries in the six digit figures but are unable to participate in the eSports community because of time devoted to their studies.

I think that somebody who has a lot of skill in a competitive video game should be rewarded just as they would for a sport such as soccer or football. Millions of people play competitive online games such as League of Legends, Starcraft and DOTA 2. There is no reason for such a large community not to be recognized by the varsity sports community.

These gamers should not be treated differently from any other athletes out there because the games are considered to be a real sport and do require extreme skill and practice to be at the top.

No university in Canada has offered scholarships for e-Sports or have taken them seriously.

Hopefully this will change soon as the gaming community continues to expand.

It is great that video games are becoming something to be proud of rather than looked down upon.